Posted
by
Soulskillon Tuesday July 06, 2010 @03:02PM
from the guess-that's-one-way-to-get-rid-of-trolls dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Recently, Blizzard Entertainment implemented a Real ID feature for some of its current games and all of its future Battle.net-based games. Today, Blizzard announced that it intends to require usage of the real names of Battle.net posters for its StarCraft II forums before release, and for its World of Warcraft forums shortly before the release of World of Warcraft: Cataclysm. From the announcement: 'The first and most significant change is that in the near future, anyone posting or replying to a post on official Blizzard forums will be doing so using their Real ID — that is, their real-life first and last name — with the option to also display the name of their primary in-game character alongside it. These changes will go into effect on all StarCraft II forums with the launch of the new community site prior to the July 27 release of the game, with the World of Warcraft site and forums following suit near the launch of Cataclysm. Certain classic forums, including the classic Battle.net forums, will remain unchanged.'"

A Blizzard employee went ahead and put his name out there as detailed on this site [gameriot.com].

In short, a little digging has found the guy's phone number, home address, the names and home address of his parents, his siblings' names, the valuation of his property, the name of his spouse, his facebook account, pictures of his home, pictures of him, his twitter account, his age, and so on.

That link is classic. It's too bad it's not on the blizzard official forum. However, if it was, it would have been deleted forthwith. I'm sure Blizzard is fully aware of the gameriot thread by now, though.

EPIC FAIL on Blizzard's part (I wonder how much of a decision this was of Blizzard or Activision). There are some really psycho people on WoW. I'd hate for someone to get hurt because of this issue.

From the Real ID FAQ
Will parents be able to control their child’s access to posting on the forums?
Yes. When this change to the forums goes live, parents will be able to decide whether to allow their child to post on official Blizzard forums that use Real ID through Battle.net Parental Controls.

You know that list of things every responsible parent teaches their children to never do on the internet?

One of those things is to tell someone your real name.

Blizzard is forcing them to in a way they are unlikely to notice first or are willing to do anyway because it is for all the new big games.

Blizzard is going to expose the identities of millions of people, including children and adolescents publicly on the internet. They can then be exploited by anyone, including the "wonderful" guys over at 4chan, and worse.

facebook profiles are created with that intention. You are making an account that is you. No one makes their orc warlock thinking it is really who they are. (I'm preparing for contradictory comments below).

You actually don't have that choice, unless you infringe their terms [facebook.com], which say, "You will not provide any false personal information on Facebook, or create an account for anyone other than yourself without permission".

And yet everyone gives out their real name on Facebook when they have the choice to give a fake one.

But Facebook is intended for communicating with people whom you already know in real life.

Pretty much every forum on the Internet that is (unlike Facebook) meant for communicating with strangers allows anonymity; the WoW forums are about to become the only exception I can think of. And users generally want it this way, gaining anonymity at the cost of occasional trolling and such. So either Blizzard knows something that every other forum and their users don't know, or they're making a massive mistake. I give Blizzard a lot of credit as game designers but something tells me it's the latter.

Really? I have two facebook profiles. One with my real name, with very limited details, and one with a fake name where all my RL friends can find me. A google search brings up nothing about me, even though I was convicted of a felony 23 years ago, there are no pictures of me on the internet that I can find, and I use my real name for nothing, including my WoW account. My phone, cable and power bill are all in fake names, and I rent for cash from a former employer. My vehicles are registered to me, at a 10 year old address and my DL shows the same address. Which the banks also have as my permanent address. I use a PO box in the same county as my "official" address shows. Not everyone is willing to let the government or corporations track their where abouts and doings with ease.

And yet everyone gives out their real name on Facebook when they have the choice to give a fake one.

I have two Facebook accounts, both use fake names. Said names are based on anime characters I like. I've gotten tons of friend requests on them.... all from other accounts using anime characters names.

So no, everyone does NOT give their real name out on Facebook. In fact I will never do so. Just because a lot of stupid people do it doesn't mean everyone does it.

At the risk of making the stale old 'they aren't holding a gun to your head' argument, I find the word "force" to be pure rhetoric. It's not even the game itself, just the official forums for the game, which is both optional and has alternatives. It's rather trivial to avoid giving your name if you don't want to.

At the risk of making the stale old 'they aren't holding a gun to your head' argument, I find the word "force" to be pure rhetoric. It's not even the game itself, just the official forums for the game, which is both optional and has alternatives. It's rather trivial to avoid giving your name if you don't want to.

That is a predicament, but more because they are trying to phase it in. This wouldn't be an issue if it were the way the game was when released, and those with an objection could simply not sign up to begin with.

and for 99% of the time that is fine... but there have been actual MURDERS over starcraft rankings in Korea. OK, so some whacked out arena junkie you knocked out of getting their ________ Gladiator title finds your real name, looks at the post you made about your crappy ISP, figures out your timezone and region based on your posting schedules and camps out a few houses... wouldn't take long to figure out which house had a hardcore wow-head in it... load up the shotgun and get his title back.

The obvious solution to this, of course, is to not act like a dickhole.

No, that's not the solution. There are people out there, and I'm sure you've encountered a few, that take any disagreement with them, no matter how polite as an attack on their person and respond like insane psychotics. (Which they probably are.) Being polite is certainly a good idea, but it won't protect you from the lunatics of the world who are either unstable or actively looking for reasons to get offended.

Anonymity isn't just useful to protect the assholes of the world, it's also useful to protect t

My thought: Internet Detectives are going to have a field day with this. Got ganked by a Rogue last night? Search the forums for his character name, find his real name, figure out where he lives, and get him right back with harassing phone calls, pizzas, etc...

My thought: Internet Detectives are going to have a field day with this. Got ganked by a Rogue last night? Search the forums for his character name, find his real name, figure out where he lives, and get him right back with harassing phone calls, pizzas, etc...

Or they...
- Track him down and set his house on fire.
- Find his workplace and tell his boss/coworkers that he's a pedophile/rapist/etc.
- Find their SO and tell them the same as above.

It's sickening the amount of things that could follow through from this action and just one remark. The whole RealID thing is a problem in the first place for transgender folks who don't want others to know their legal names, but all of the above listed reasons.

The whole "there's no smoke without fire!" mob mentality has destroyed more lives than we can ever keep track. These are the sorts of accusations that even being found innocent is still a form of "guilt", because people will always ASSUME that "there had to be a reason why they investigated such and such"...

Blizz admins just want to make sure all those bikini clad elf chicks they have been cyberlicking are actually females.

An anonymous survey from the Daedalus project a few years ago (http://www.nickyee.com/daedalus/) quoted 40% of warcraft females are actually a female and with Blizards own stoppers preventing players from ever changing the real name the account was created with, I'm guessing theres going to be a lot of surprise transvestites popping up after the patch release.

... with more and more people being forced to use their real names on the Internet, you'll see a lot less flaming, trolling, and defacing. People I believe will be less quick to turn a discussion into an argument and more interested in understanding one another.

However, I do not personally like the idea of my first and last name being made public everywhere, which is why I have generally shunned Facebook and would not use this feature even if I wanted to.

So you like other people not being anonymous, but you want yourself to still be anonymous? That kind of reminds me of this [theonion.com].

I personally think internet anonymity is a good thing. It forces people to attack each other's arguments rather than resorting to ad hominems, and ensures an even playing field, since newbies' arguments are heard on the same level as those of our celebrities (at least in theory).

I personally think internet anonymity is a good thing. It forces people to attack each other's arguments rather than resorting to ad hominems, and ensures an even playing field, since newbies' arguments are heard on the same level as those of our celebrities (at least in theory).

<sarcasm>Yes, because there's no such thing as ad hominem attacks on slashdot.</sarcasm> With sock puppet accounts and other trickery I'm not sure that it's so even either, on top of those that just want to trash about and destroy any real discussion. But what you don't get on a real name forum, is honesty. And before you all go constitutional on me, it's perfectly rational to not tell everybody everything. Friends, family, employers, the general public, nobody except the government is obliged t

Except, of course, for that time when your boss was considering you for a promotion but chose the other candidate because he doesn't play that "stupid kid's game" in all his spare time.

True story: I moved to a new town and started a new job working at a management level with a few other degree-level pros and also a large group of high-school and GED level workers. I joined an online dating site and set one of my preferences to be for at least college level education. Some of the ladies at work checked out my profile (you can hide your name, but not having a photo means no views), and it got quickly spread that I was "against" only having high-school level education. Oh, well, right? Well, then I got transferred to work under an older supervisor with "only" a high-school diploma who'd gotten his current position by working for 30+ years in the industry. Yeah, lot of fun working under someone who believed the rumors that you don't think people with only high-school level education are worth anything. Maybe it shouldn't happen, but people judge you both on what you do online and what you're perceived as doing online. That's just the way the world works. Forcing people to use their real names will have many effects, but one big one is that it will cause many thinking people to simply not post anymore, good or bad posts.

... with more and more people being forced to use their real names on the Internet, you'll see a lot less flaming, trolling, and defacing. People I believe will be less quick to turn a discussion into an argument and more interested in understanding one another.

However, I do not personally like the idea of my first and last name being made public everywhere, which is why I have generally shunned Facebook and would not use this feature even if I wanted to.

So in other words, chilling effects on free speech are a good idea, but only if they're placed on other people?

It's a horrible idea. Anyone with some basic Google searching skills can uncover a lot about people based on (presumably) their real name. For people such as myself with a name that is not so unique, it is not a huge issue. But for a lot of people who might have more uncommon names, such information can easily be used to find addresses, phone numbers, email addresses, social networking accounts, and other information. This is an identity theft and privacy nightmare. And given the ages and types of people wh

I mean I completely agree, that if you remove the anonymity you'll remove a lot of the asshole factor online. People are much bigger pricks when they don't think it can come back to bite them. So it would remove a lot of that.

However it would also discourage people form sharing thoughts as freely. If I had to use my real name on Slashdot, I wouldn't post nearly as much. I'd make sure to restrict it only to things I was comfortable with all current and future employers seeing. I wouldn't want to screw myself out of a job because I posted something that someone disagreed with.

As it stands though, a pseudonym allows me to do that. It isn't true anonymity, with a bit of sniffing around you could easily come up with who I really am. However it means that a simple search for my real name will not come up with any of this. That is enough to keep it form being a problem. Just removing the direct connection is all I need.

Over all, I think it is good to have things that way. I like to be able to freely share my thoughts online, and I'd like to think some people find it valuable (on Slashdot people seem to at least sometimes as I do get modded up). I wouldn't want to have to restrict some of those because of the worry of retribution. I can only do that so long as I can have a small barrier between my real and online identity.

If I had to use my real name on Slashdot, I wouldn't post nearly as much. I'd make sure to restrict it only to things I was comfortable with all current and future employers seeing

I've said this on here before, but I was once employed by such an employer. They wanted complete editorial control over each and every one of their employees very thoughts. They even went so far as to consider firing employees wouldn't agree to vote the way the upper management thought was 'right'.

If your comments on Facebook, etc, ever caused such an employer to pass you by, then those comments did you a favor. Trust me. It is better to not get the job than to have to replace it because you're not ideologically compatible.

In a case like that, sure. Though actually in a case like that I'd make sure to get myself fired over a voting issue and then sue the fuck out of them. The voting booth is a pretty sacred right in the US and termination over it would be bad cause in every jurisdiction I'm aware of.

However what I'm worried about is a case of people who generally aren't like that, they aren't the "Everyone must agree with us in every way," sort, but that they happen to see something that they decide makes them say no.

You hear about this all the time, people post Facebook pictures of themselves at a wild party in university and find it hurts jobs later. It usually isn't that the folks doing the hiring are Puritans or anything, they are just dumbasses. They did the same kind of shit themselves when they were young but have conveniently forgotten about it. They think "Well this sort of thing doesn't reflect well for our company," and give the person a miss.

In my case, what I might be worried about is that I've posted stories about my work environment. Now I've never named my employer, mostly because that comes too close to making it too easy to identify me, but still. I'm not worried now, I work for a public institution and thus I have a right to do it (HR specifically says so) as the tax payers have a right to know. But at some time in the future I go for another job and maybe that company thinks "Well we like the guy, but he talks about his employer online. We really don't want that, have to give him a miss."

I just find it better that there is a barrier between my real name and what I post online. Not a strong or impenetrable one, but one that if you Google my name, you do not get results of what I've said in forums.

ok, we know John Smith, we can find out their region by looking at their server, a look at their post times and we can guess what time zone they are in, a reference to a specific ISP and you can get mighty close to knowing who a person is.

Only about 12 people in the United States have my last name. If I tell someone my full name, I might as well just tell them my social security number. Names aren't always as anonymous as you'd think...

There are IIRC only 3 of me on earth. Mostly because my ancestors changed the spelling of their name to sound less German when they immigrated, but they didn't know enough English for it to make any sense.

And no, my user name is not even remotely related to that name.

Well, if we're playing the "who was the rarer name" game, then I probably win. I only know of one other person (on the internet) with my first name.

Well, we've got a whole generation of Failbookers who believe in attaching everything they do in real life to their real name... and we've got a game. If we can get people to divulge their real names to us, we can trivially cross-reference that with the data that Zuckerberg's already mined for us, and one outer-join later, money falls from the heavens.

What the consumer actually wanted - the ability to be The Real Them on Failbook, and Someone Completely Different while gaming - doesn't enter into it. *s

If you've ever seen a Blizzard forum, they're some of the worst trolled forums I've ever seen. Blizzard needs to do something. Blizzard looks to be grasping at straws though. What Blizzard really needs is a moderation system like Slashdot.

In the old EQ days (I know it's still around but who cares these days), all the forums for the game were run by the fans because there were no official ones. I have a feeling this change will cause similar forums to rise in popularity and Blizzard will accomplish little other than losing control of the conversation and pissing off their users.

While a lot of people have gone on and on about how using real names will promote more civility and better discourse, something I seriously doubt is necessarily true, that is no where near the real reason Blizzard is forcing RealID.

It's a means to open up their TOS to allow dataminers access to a vast swath of information. Cha ching! Add to that anyone in game using RealID that then links up friends list? Cha ching! Even more information to datamine. And of course anyone who has played WoW knows that they log damn near everything. You can bet that gchat, party chat, officer chat, raid chat, general chat, trade chat, and every other channel that you type a letter in will be up for datamining. Cha ching!

It's all about the money people. Cloaked in a flag of good intentions.

Data mining players on blizzard isn't nearly as meaningful as you're making it out to be. Blizzard employees have stated on previous occasions that the amount of data they generate is monumental and trying to mine it is so impractical they just throw it all away. This is the reason they can't even catch people cheating by rewinding battlegrounds sessions. Data mining a place like facebook is far more valuable because the connections between people are easily confined and contain stable links. Data mining th

Nonsense. First, Blizzard already has the real name associated with an account. If they want, they can already do all that data-mining you're so concerned about. The publishing of the RealID names on the forum are completely unrelated to this.

Second, the forums only show your name. Not what characters you belong to. Not even what server you play on (disclaimer: you do have the option to associate with a character, but its not on by default).

There is one of the better posts on Blizzards own forums as to why publishing someones 1st and last name, in association with other details, is a (TM) very bad thing.

Yes they can already sell off what data they have but not without their users going wtf!? But when RealID becomes the norm well then it's no wonder Joe Bob Jones is getting targeted ads for snickerdoodles. His forum posts, linked with Faceboo

1) Did Blizzard ever stop to think that many (most?) people play their games as an ESCAPE from real life?

2) Anything on Blizzard forums goes on Google, and comes up in search results. That means anybody who uses their forums is going to be labeling themselves, forever after, as a nerdy computer game player to future employers, dates, etc...which is not something that is looked upon positively by many people. I would certainly discriminate against potential employees if I saw that they were a WoW geek.

3) People sometimes have bad days, say things they regret later...on a forum this is all saved forever. Luckily only the people who know their forum name can find it. So you protect your hidden identities more securely than you protect your email passwords. Blizzard aims to make all those mistakes unforgivable.

There is nothing that is possibly worth saying on the Blizzard forums that is worth sacrificing one's anonymity for.

This is a non-issue. Blizzard isn't forcing you to use your real First Last name, it's just forcing you to provide *a* first/last name. Put another way, with time codes it's impossible to prove your identity to blizzard, so you can pretend to be anyone you want with little chance they can enforce ULA or other contractual obligations.

Seems to me the more restrictions and qualifications for play and participation are imposed, the more likely people will stop playing and participating. After all, it wasn't that long ago that a game company's employee misused his access to do various nasty things... something to do with virtual currency and plans for ships or some such. All of this begs the question of what company employees might do to the customers under certain circumstances were real names and other specific identifiers made availabl

Imagine for a second a 42 year old lonely man (with very little social skills) playing World of Warcraft and he learns that Night Elf Rogue is actually a girl. They chat for a while and become friendly online. He starts to fixate and fantasize that those trips helping her level her alt are "dates" and eventually he falls in love with her. Or at least her character and voice.

Fixation turns into obsession and after a couple failed attempts to woo her into a real life relationship, she turns him down (hell, he's a creeper).

He gets upset and from the personal information he has gathered over their time "together" he is able to locate her using her _real_ name that Blizzard forces you to use (not a fictional "eName" you make up to give out on the intertubes to remain anonymous). Fill in the rest with your imagination.

Or, someone harasses you in game and you look to take revenge. Ninja looters, stealing quest mobs/items, kicking you from group/raid, etc. Maybe they simply want to threaten you (which already happens [NSFW] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UUOI7BTmmk0 [youtube.com] [NSFW]).

Of course, this can happen anywhere with any site that shows real names (facebook, etc). But forcing people to drop their anonymity is a bad thing overall. How many children play Blizzard's _games_ of which are going to be forced to link their, or more likely, their parents names to their account and be seen? It's not that hard to track someone down when you know their approximate location and their last name.

I guess the short is, anonymity can be bad. People act like punks and you have to put up with it from time to time, I know, it sucks. But the good part is, little Johnny potty mouth won't have to potentially pay with his life. Hopefully he learns to grow up on his own without someone like the chick from the link I posted above hunting him down.

If there are no girls on the internet now, there won't be any ever once this goes into effect.

There's no quicker way to be harassed, stalked, and otherwise massively annoyed by EVERYONE than to reveal that you are in possession of TWO X chromosomes, instead of the internet norm XY configuration.

And the absolute last thing I want is random assholes that I've pissed off on my server to Google my name, of which the first result is the staff listing on my current employer's website, and then start sending nasty emails to my boss.

While I think that overall this is a good thing for the Blizzard forums (as well as other changes they are making according to TFA, including rating up and down on posts), it completely removes my desire to post on their forums. I don't troll as a rule (but I can't say it’s never happened), but my last name is so unique that finding me on the Google is already ridiculously easy (my first and last name - all of the first page is me). I don't need prospective employers knowing about my gaming habits, and even less so prospective dates. Not that I go out of my way to hide these things from people, but I don't want it popping up as a matter of course just because someone googles my last name.

The only thing Blizzard is really able to "require" is that the names in the First Name and Last Name boxes on the site. That does not necessarily have any relationship to "real" first or last names. Even paying for the service can be done with someone else's credit card. So... Good Luck With That. Some will comply. Others will not.

EVERYONE that posts on the forums will have their RealID exposed, even employees. At least one of the GM/Devs already revealed her name. Also, most of the employees are named in the game manuals (those things we dont read), including the GM mentioned.

what has me worried is that I rarely disclose that I'm female in WoW except to my guild... when other people find out they tend to be less than mature. I would rather not face a barrage of/tells and real_id friend requests from the "plz cyber?" crowd.

By default it does not associate any post with a particular in-game character. So while they'd know you were female on the forums, there'd be no way to know that any given character belonged to you unless you choose to do so.

But that's still backwards - my forum persona should be associated with my in-game character, not my real ID. Imagine for a moment this was some sort of role-playing game... nah, too much of a stretch. For Starcraft, there have already been real life shootings in Korea - this isn't going to help things.

Why shouldn't I seperate my online persona(s) from my real life identity? What problem is Blizzard trying to solve here? I make it a point to avoid any forum identity that could be easliy traced back to

Why shouldn't I seperate my online persona(s) from my real life identity? What problem is Blizzard trying to solve here?

The Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory [penny-arcade.com]. People are less likely to act like an asshole if they don't have anonymity to hide behind. The only people who will be idiots any more are those who are idiots already.

Another example of a game using real names is iRacing [iracing.com], though real names are used throughout the game, instead of just on the forums. Again, the idea is to discourage anti-social behavior (intentional wrecking, profanity, etc), and this is part of their aggressive policing against griefers. In this case, such a prevention is especially necessary for a racing game of this type. I don't frequent the Blizzard forums, so I'm not sure if there are enough douchebags there to justify such measures.

I make it a point to avoid any forum identity that could be easliy traced back to my real name, because stuff comes back to haunt you. Do you really want somehting you said 20 years ago in some gaming forum to come up in a job interview?

In that case, either:
1) Don't be a jack-ass on the Blizzard forums.
2) Don't use the Blizzard forums.

That said, I've given my screen name which I've used for the last decade as part of a background check for an interview, so I'm well aware of the issue. However, nothing I said in the past (I've said a lot of stupid stuff) was an issue. If it is a concern to you, don't use the forums (it's an optional part of an optional game you play, you can deal with it), or simply police your behavior before it is recorded for all posterity on the Intertubes.

The problem is that the degree to which anyone is deterred will be determined by how concerned they are about their online image. People with careers and families will be even more cautious, and probably less like to contribute to a discussion. 13-y.o. dickheads will go right on being dickheads, because they have nothing to lose and it will be several years before they are in any position to worry about an online reputation. So, people who are most likely to say something worthwhile are the most likely to be silenced by lack of anonymity.

I sympathize with Blizzard's desire to want to make the forums a more constructive and friendly environment,

I haven't been on the Blizzard Fora for years, but my last experience of it was a few years up until they finally killed of the last forum for Diablo I.I can tell you exactly what Blizzard could have done to make that forum more constructive and friendly. They could have actually dropped in once in a while to moderate it.

There was a group of a dozen or so forum regulars who had been there essentially since forever. These people were a very close-knit group, and esentially saw the forum as their own.Anyone n

I think the only positive thing Blizzard will get from this is less traffic on their official forums.

I can only hope that Blizzard will catch on to the outrage of this. I won't stop playing, but I'll stop using their forums. All of those useful posts I've made in the past will no longer continue to happen, including anything I've said that was inflammatory. The good posts I've made outweigh the ones where I put up bounties on people on my faction, trashed someone, etc.

I'll be posting on Elitist Jerks or some other forum for anything involving my class or endgame content. For discussing realm matters, I jus

5. People stop posting legitimate, intelligent useful feedback because they value their personal privacy more than a video game.6. Without the constructive feedback, issues without the game go unnoticed or unreported for longer periods of time.7. These issues compound and add up making the game less fun, but it becomes more difficult to quantify why the game is less fun without this feedback.8. Subscriptions slowly drop off and the game trickles away and dies.9. Long term loss of profit for short term, nearsighted gain.